Chapter 444: 2004 with the theme of defending the title

At 11 pm on December 4, Manchester United ushered in the 16th round of the Premier League, facing Southampton at home. The Red Devils continued to perform strongly, defeating their opponents 3:0 at home, and continuing to lead the Premier League standings.

Immediately, Manchester United were divided into two groups, one by assistant coach Queros, led a substitute rotation lineup, headed to Istanbul, Turkey, to participate in the last Champions League group stage, and challenged Turkish Super League giant Galatasaray away. The other side was led by Ferguson, headed to Japan to participate in the last Toyota Cup.

Because Manchester United has basically secured the first place in the Champions League group stage, and the last group stage of the Champions League group stage is too close to the Toyota Cup match, Ferguson made such a risky arrangement.

Manchester United almost capsized in the gutter and was snatched away by Lyon. In the 6th round of the UEFA Champions League group stage in the early morning of December 9, Manchester United, who played with all substitutes and youth team players, lost 0:3 away.

At the same time, Lyon defeated Sparta Prague at 5:0 at home. In this way, both Manchester United and Lyon achieved 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss, with the same points.

Fortunately, Manchester United accumulated enough goal difference advantage in the previous five rounds of group matches. Despite a 0-3 defeat in the last round, the Red Devils still achieved the advantage of 9 goals by scoring 18 goals and conceding 9 goals, surpassing Lyon, who scored 17 goals and conceded 11 goals and had 6 goals, and won the first place in the group D.

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On December 11, the second European Golden Boy Awards were released. Manchester United's young player Rooney won the award for his outstanding performance after joining Manchester United.

This is the second time that a young Manchester United player has won this award. The last session was also the first session of the European Golden Boy Award, and the winner was Yin Jun.

The young talent of the Red Devils won awards from the previous two sessions.

Rooney went to Turin, Italy and personally raised the trophy for the European Golden Boy Award. Therefore, he did not go to Japan with the team to participate in the Toyota Cup, but went to Turkey with the bench to participate in the last round of the Champions League group stage.

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One day later, the last Toyota Cup was held in Yokohama, Japan. Manchester United, as the Champions League champion, faced the South American Liberators Cup champion, Calders from Colombia.

Yin Jun once again became the dominant of the game, scoring twice to help Manchester United defeat his opponent 2-0 in regular time, winning the final Toyota Cup championship trophy.

The Toyota Cup's masterpiece has complicated the mood of many fans.

There are very few reports from major Japanese newspapers about this Toyota Cup, and even these few reports are concentrated on news such as "how many tickets are not sold". Just the day before the game, more than 3,000 tickets were not sold, which was unimaginable before, so many Japanese fans lamented that this Toyota Cup "will be held in silence."

Before the game started, many Japanese fans entered the game silently, without the joy of watching the game. The old fan Kamada said: "I have watched the Toyota Cup for twenty years and have a special feeling for it. Unfortunately, I won't see it next year."

He told reporters that he came here specially after taking a car for nearly 3 hours.

In contrast, some foreign fans seem very happy.

Outside the field, a Colombian couple was sorting out a national flag. They were preparing to bring the flag into the field to cheer for the Caldes team. "Colombia!" The female fan shouted proudly, while the male fan waved the national flag vigorously.

Perhaps for them, it doesn’t matter whether the Toyota Cup is the last one. What’s important is that they can see their own team in the Toyota Cup this time.

Of course, the happiest thing is the Chinese fans, who once again witnessed the pride of the Chinese dominating the game.

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Yin Jun, who drove away the Toyota car, did not stay in Japan. Because he had been informed by French Football that he won this year's European Golden Ball Award, and was interviewed by French Football magazine at his home in Manchester and filmed the winning video.

For Yin Jun, this is a familiar thing. After all, he had experienced it once a year ago, and now he is just repeating it again.

Now, Yin Jun flew back to Paris overnight to attend the European Golden Globe Awards ceremony held on the evening of December 13 local time.

For Yin Jun, he defeated his competitors almost without any suspense and won the European Golden Globe Award. According to the winning results announced later, Yin Jun won 48 of the 52 judges, with a final total of up to 253 points!

This is a record score. The previous highest score was Zidane in 1998. The Juventus King scored 45 of 52 5 points, with a total score of up to 244 points!

In addition to Yin Jun, his major competitors scored less than half of Yin Jun!

The second place is Shevchenko from AC Milan. The Ukrainian nuclear warhead scored 128 points, and Barcelona's star Ronaldinho ranked third with 123 points.

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It is no surprise that Yin Jun won the European Golden Globe Award, because long before the results were released, all parties had predicted that Yin Jun would defend the European Golden Globe Award with an unprecedented huge advantage.

It is really because Yin Jun performed too well in 2004. Whether it is personal performance or collective honor, he has obvious advantages compared to his major competitors.

With the release of the European Golden Ball Awards, the world football world's attention has focused on the 2004 World Footballer, which will be announced a week later.

Although media from all sides are optimistic that Yin Jun won the highest award in the world football world, nothing can happen before the results are released. Although Yin Jun has obvious advantages, he is inevitably turned around, especially in the award of the performance of the national team that values ​​players more. Yin Jun, born in a "weak country" in football, was born at a disadvantage. For example, last year, he was favored by media from various countries, but eventually lost to Zidane.

Almost at the same time as the European Golden Ball Awards, there is also the matchup situation in the first round of the Champions League knockout stage this season. At the UEFA draw ceremony, Manchester United, as the first in the group, drew a pretty good draw and won the Bundesliga Werder Bremen.

In the other seven sets of matches, Real Madrid faced the Serie A top Juventus, Liverpool faced Sanya king Leverkusen in the Bundesliga, Eindhoven fought against Monaco, Bayern Munich and Arsenal were drawn together, Porto faced Inter Milan, Barcelona faced Chelsea, and Lyon met AC Milan.
Chapter completed!